Qt is a programming framework and in my humble opinion the best one around. It supports the major desktop operating systems and even one or two mobile platforms. This means that without having to change a line of code you can create graphically pleasing and useful programs for multiple operating systems.

When Qt was bought by Nokia I was concerned that it would be closed off. Luckily that didn't happen and Nokia actually improved Qt. Then when Nokia went over to the dark side and became a windows supporter :P I became downright scared that Qt support for other operating systems would languish.

However, there is no need to be scared now with the recent news that Digia is going to buy Qt from Nokia and be the lifeboat for Qt. Rescuing it from the sinking Titanic that Nokia has become (which seemed to coincide with their switch to the windows operating system for their phones, hmmmmmm). According to this news this is not an all in one lump sum buyout. Digia had previously bought the commercial licensing part of Qt over a year ago and made it into a successful concern. Now, at the time of this writing they have announced their intention to buy the whole kit and caboodle.

Digia is not just going to sit on the Qt laurals though, they have big plans to spread Qt goodness even further than before. Expect Qt to be natively supported on Android and iOS. Perhaps even windows 8 :). I don't know about you but according to my fingers and toes this makes Qt the only C++ programming framework to support so many different operating systems.

On a personal note I believe that Qt is the easiest and most flexible framework that I have ever used. I have developed many, many programs using Qt and they work without any code changes across multiple platforms, even Android with an unfinished Qt library. The signal and slots model used by Qt has no equal to any other "callback" model I have seen. Yes indeed these are interesting times :)

What do you think about this buyout? Will it turn Qt from a giant to a behemoth? Have you ever used Qt? How does it compare to other programming frameworks? Let us know in the comments below.

Some name

I've always been fascinated with graphics and wrote my first drawing program on the venerable apple ][e. After discovering the x86 IBM clones and wrangling my way into the computer industry I'm now immersed in work as a Computer Engineer, System Administrator, OS builder (Linux from Scratch and Android) and general techno-head.